"Tug of war!" Janie exclaimed, clapping her hands.
I found myself reluctantly excited, being just macho enough to enjoy a contest of strength. What amazed me, though, was that this contest included officers. My honorary rank of three-stripes was no doubt unrecognized here, but Francois still ordered me to join the men—and one woman, an ensign named Emily—on the Surf-side. I was surprised Natalie hadn't been included, but she was apparently too busy showing off her claws to Janie. Francois looked over his team smugly. We appeared obviously much stronger than the competition. Not surprisingly, Philippe threw his knobby arms into the air and cried foul.
"Our ship has half the crew of the Wind Surf!" he protested. "We have smaller crew to choose from. I protest that the contest is unfair."
"I think not," Francois retorted. "My biggest man is stationed on the bridge. Is this not enough?"
But Philippe kept protesting. He was specifically pointing at me. The stalemate lengthened. Heat gathered on our still bodies and beaded up. I just wanted to get on with it, or get out of here. Eventually a trim man in a stained boiler suit approached, the handsome fellow on the bridge who had also listened to Barney's singing. He tapped me on the shoulder and said with a delicate Dutch accent, "Thank you. I'll take it from here."
A monstrous wave of cheering crashed over us like a tsunami of enthusiasm.
"What's with the cheering?" I asked Janie, returning to the concrete barriers.
"Ouch!" I suddenly cried, clapping a hand to my shoulder. Giving it a rub, I glared up at Natalie. She had reached down from behind to pluck at my skin with her sharp nails. "What the hell was that?"
"I saw a pimple," she replied sheepishly, adding, "I couldn't resist." For the first time I noticed a blue gem glued to her front tooth, glinting in the harsh sunlight. It matched the blue of her nails.
"That's the XO!" Janie said proudly, answering my pre-pluck question.
"The first officer?" I replied, shocked. "But... that’s the guy I saw painting railings!"
As an American, I was used to the idea of 'doers' getting their hands dirty regardless of who they were. Not always, of course, but it appealed to our ideas of equality. As an experienced crew member, however, I knew most officers considered menial chores properly relegated to classes beneath them. This XO either hated being on this ship, with such menial labor, or loved her enough to give her his best. Considering his enthusiastic grip on the rope, I sensed he felt the latter. I liked him already. Obviously Janie did, too, as she was hopping and chanting, "X O X O!"
Yet Philippe's unrelenting protestations delayed the contest interminably. By the time he was satisfied to begin, our team had been whittled down to a mere eight bodies competing against their eleven. I wished I could rejoin our team. Funny how I felt that way only after being booted off. I made the conscious decision to bite back my apathy and view the competition for what it was. Joy buzzed through the crowd, and I passed it along rather than try to douse it. It was not necessarily enthusiasm, but it was a start.
Wind Star won. This disgusted Francois so much he refused to reward Philippe after the match, loudly calling him a cheater. Officers rose from hot concrete to dust themselves off with smiles. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Officers on the ground in front of their own crew?
No, Wind Surf was truly not like other ships.
3. Porto Vecchio, Corsica
1
Continuing on a theme, perhaps, the next day Wind Surf visited the island of Napoleon's birth. Corsica was an extremely mountainous island. Green-smattered granite peaks reared up thousands of feet behind the town of Porto Vecchio. The origin of the town's name—it meant 'old port'—was self evident. Ancient stone buildings covered a seaside hill, clustered for protection in days of old, rising higher until capped by a church steeple. A parking lot of yachts behind a breakwater tickled the eye with masts bristling like a forest. The city was picturesque in the extreme, even with hazy clouds smothering the far mountains. From the Surf's anchorage the view was particularly stunning.
Members of the 'family' invited me to tender into town with them. I declined. No doubt they would be surprised to find I did not reciprocate their idea of family. I was getting a little freaked out over the idea that this crew was bound together in any way beyond momentary proximity. The irony was that I was used to making friends at sea fast. Big ships had many, many dozens of bodies coming and going every week—both literally and in the naughty, figurative sense—so you got to know somebody fast or not at all. This compression of time brought people closer than ever, faster than ever, and apart again, too.
With such overwhelming newness at all times, and so many long hours at work to lengthen a day far longer than labor laws allow, by the end of ten months you feel like you've lived years. Working three shifts a day every day for ten months did not triple life: it compounded exponentially. A contract was less than a lifetime, but far, far more than its composite months. Returning home from my first contract had all the strangeness of that first return after college: my room looked like something a kid would live in, surely not me! A New York minute had nuthin' on ship time.
Now, however, I was counting on that elasticity of time. In the past I had been impatiently waiting for someone, my Bianca, and the ultra-fast flow made my wait even more unbearable. I suffered three real-world years that truly felt like a decade. Now, suddenly, things were different. After a promise to be married, within days we were apart again, and this time for good. I was unused to working a ship without expectation of Bianca joining me. And here was the weirdest cruise ship in the world, Wind Surf, stuck in a sluggish backwater of time. More irony. It was awful.
Indifferent to any emotional pangs, work crowded my attention. Though having been on Surf for several days, I was still clueless how to proceed. I spent a long morning going over the previous auctioneer's paperwork. The sales figures were almost all zeroes, and not the good kind stringing along at the end of a number. These were big, fat goose eggs on the bottom line. Jeff's lack of notes, documentation, or even advertising material implied that he had not held any art auctions at all. I concluded that he just 'hung out' at his gallery, hoping for sales to walk in. Trouble is, he had no gallery. Or even a desk. Certainly he had no sales.
But he had hats. Lots of hats. Weird hats. My cabin was a veritable menagerie: a plush lobster sat on the chair, hiding a hole in the seat; a woolly parrot stared down from between bottles of shampoo in the cruddy shower, a giant salmon wallowed beneath my lumpy pillow as if it were a rock in a stream. The hats weren't just in my cabin, either, but crammed between works of art in the locker or hiding behind stacks of folded easels. Nor were they all stuffed animals. Subjects ranged from the mundane, such as the large block of cheese, to the unlikely, like the astrolabe. It took me a minute to identify that one. Its fat, fuzzy tubes formed a round-bottomed triangle with the eye piece containing an actual cartoonish eye, complete with button pupil.
So I sat in my crowded cabin and stared at a puffy pig hat for a while. He was buried up to his snout in a clutter of work-related detritus Jeff had left. Eventually I rose, tucked the pig under my arm, and strode out into the hall. I wandered through the ship, lost in my caressing of this pet. I hardly noticed the surprised glances from guests, or the knowing smiles from 'family'. Eventually I found myself at the hotel director's office, where I paused. Francois immediately noticed the large zombie in his doorway.
"Come in, come in," he said reassuringly. He chuckled when he saw me petting the hat. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm not entirely sure," I admitted, sitting down. "I'm at a loss to explain how my predecessor made any money. Did he even have an auction at all?"
Francois leaned back and thought for a moment. Finally he said, "I do not entirely understand your position here, I must admit. As hotel director I know everything that happens on this ship and money is my business. But I am French, and we have a different way of looking at things than you Americans. Art is an essential part of
life, something to be passionate about. I can understand being an art dealer because I believe in art. I would become an art auctioneer for the joy of bringing beauty into peoples' lives. Only then would I mention—and only perhaps—that I hope to make some money doing it.
"When art auctioneers talk, it's only of money. They tell you how much they have sold, or how much they are worth, feeling quite content to have fully identified themselves to you. I have met several from your company over the years, and observed them talking amongst themselves. They do not discourse on the art at all, but merely the value."
Francois paused for a moment, then concluded, "I submit to you that, though our passengers are predominantly American, they sail with us in order to escape it for a while. Jeff was unable to perform because his expectations of selling volume to the lowest common denominator were not met. Windstar Cruises is not Walmart. He was unable to adapt his approach."
There was no rebuke in Francois' explanation, even if it sounded less than complimentary to America. He was just commenting on his observations regarding different cultural ideas on success.
"I understand," I said. "Jeff was very young and no doubt straight out of Sundance training. They aren't big on thinking outside the box, though they claim otherwise. So that explains why he was here for only two months. But what about the previous auctioneer? Paperwork indicates she was here a long, long time. That should imply she was successful, but she didn't sell anything, it seems."
Francois giggled. "No, not much at all. I didn't hold it against her, though. She was blind."
"I beg your pardon?"
His pinched features spread with amusement. "Yes, little old Gertie was legally blind. She could see a bit, of course. She wore bottle-thick glasses and with a large magnifying glass could read large-print books. That's what she spent her days doing. She was too old to really do anything else. She was nearly seventy."
I blinked, not really sure I believed what I was hearing.
"Are... are you serious?" I asked carefully. "Seventy and working at sea? Blind? That defies belief. And yet..."
"I think you will find a different business model on Wind Surf," Francois explained. "Sundance at Sea doesn't expect to make any art sales here. As you know, they are on nearly every fleet in the world. I believe they just want to have a presence in order to prevent anyone else from gaining a foothold. Gertie was here over a year, minding her own business and generally staying out of everyone's way. Sundance paid for her cabin, so I didn't mind, and her hats made her entertaining to the passengers. I even think the older guests appreciated all the large-print books she left in the library."
I stared at Francois, numbed with shock. I knew Wind Surf was by far the smallest ship in the Sundance fleet. Even her sister ships, Wind Star and Wind Spirit, were ignored because they were just too tiny. Surf was barely big enough to pretend to be interested, but the reality was that she was just a tax write-off for a business bringing in millions elsewhere. To say it was a demoralizing realization was an understatement.
The question for me now was whether I should flee like Jeff and pray for a better ship, or just quit outright. The options were really one and the same. Because I had come to sea for the sole purpose of being with Bianca, and had focused on that so exclusively, I had sacrificed my career. My employer Sundance was not happy with me, for reasons both real and imagined. They put me here so they could forget about me. In my company's estimation, I was equivalent to an elderly blind art dealer in a pig hat.
So this was it. The end of my career at sea.
I returned to my cabin to think. It was not a location conducive to it. In fact, it was the worst cabin I had ever been assigned. That's saying a lot. It was an interior cabin, small and cramped and poorly lit. With all the animals peeking from behind dark recesses it felt oddly menacing, like an underground cave hiding all manner of creepy crawlies. My every movement was observed by dozens of button eyes.
And it was a crew cabin. Art auctioneers should be given guest cabins. Ships were contractually obligated to do so, regardless of cost. On my last ship, the six star Seven Seas Mariner, I had even enjoyed my own private balcony and free wet bar. But on minuscule Wind Surf space was so limited that auctioneers were denied guest space. Considering the art department had yet to pay for itself this entire fiscal year, such accommodations were not unwarranted.
So I had bunk beds again. Broken, stained and vandalized bunk beds. My nose wrinkled at the thought of laying on that bottom bunk, surrounded by walls scratched and etched in exactly the same manner as a stall in a public toilet. No doubt Gertie hadn't even seen the carved profanity and penises. The top bunk was off limits entirely, being occupied by several hundred unframed works of art and two cow hats. The Moo Sisters, presumably.
And everything was broken. A large, gaily colored print stretched across the wall, peppered with sticky notes, plexiglass shattered. The sink's plastic basin was smashed and leaked through brown-stained cracks spreading out like a cobweb. It was in the shower, of course, pressed against the toilet, above which no longer hung a towel rack. Sharp, rusting screws bristled where they had once held onto the aluminum rod. If I leaned my head back while sitting on the toilet I would be in for a nasty wound. Luckily I had the pig hat as a safety helmet.
I stared at the grimy telephone. Dirty fingerprints were ground into the numbers, obscuring them, and the handset was so gross that the mere thought of pressing it against my ear made me my stomach roil. I didn't want to ever use that phone again, and not for fear of some sort of infestation crawling into my ear. I had only used it once, and that had been on the very first morning aboard Wind Surf. That had been the most hated call of my life. The most hated day.
The day I told Bianca to stay away.
2
Frustrated with life, work, and my new home, I wandered out on deck—pig-less—to catch some fresh air and think. Below me swarmed a handful of kayakers, surprisingly close to the ship. I soon realized they had come from the ship. I leaned over the rail and looked aft, nearly falling overboard in surprise. The entire stern of Wind Surf had opened up like a great, gaping mouth. A drop-down deck extended out as if lapping the sea, with people swarming over the teak-planked tongue in life vests.
With work ideas at a standstill, I figured I might as well see what that was all about. I wandered down to the lower decks, aft, until I saw stairs labeled 'Marina'. They curved down below a series of windows to reveal a garage-like area open to the sea and sky. I stepped into the salty air and waded through all manner of snorkeling gear and water skis. A stack of kayaks glistened in the corner, resting after an early-morning dip in the sea. Beside them was a dripping mound of lifejackets. Above all hung sailboards from rafters. Despite my gloomy mood, the fascination of the place perked me up.
A tall, solid young woman in a Surf polo stood at the edge of the deck, squinting into the sun. She had long, dirty blonde hair and a delicate haze of freckles on her cheeks. I walked up and introduced myself.
"Just a minute!" she said, cutting me off. She ran further down the deck and caught a rope hurled over by the driver of an approaching power boat. As she secured it, she looked up to me and called over the rumbling of the engine, "I'm Susie! That's my man, Eddie!"
The driver was a trim young man with spiky black hair, loads of freckles, and a generous grin. He cut the engine of the small boat—a four seater Zodiac—and the assault of noise eased. Between occasional squeaks of the rubber-sided boat against the ship's deck came the calming gurgle of the sea. The three of us sat upon the deck, sheltered by the overhanging marina. It was very peaceful. Eddie in particular looked like he needed some relaxation.
"Busy morning," Eddie commented, shaking his head. "I had to rescue Mr. Gleason twice."
"I told you," Susie said smugly. "He didn't look like he could handle that sailboat at all. He hit his head on the boom before he even got ten feet."
"Shop talk on the marina must be a lot more fun than in the art locker," I mused.
>
"I don't know about that," Eddie said, "But we do have bikinis."
Susie was clearly not as enthusiastic. Her disdain came through via posture, loud and clear. What she said, however, was, "I'm more than ready to drop it for real life. We spent two years on St. Maarten before signing on here. It's been a long time since normal."
Eddie looked up, surprised.
"St. Maarten was awesome!" he protested. "Beer was cheaper than milk!"
"My point exactly," Susie snapped.
"You said you liked living on the island," Eddie said indignantly.
"I did," Susie said with a sigh. "For the first six months."
"What did you guys do for a living there?" I asked. While I was loathe to jump into their spat, I was genuinely curious. I myself had lived outside the box for several years and was keen to learn about further career options.
"Dive instructors," Susie said. "That's how we got here, too. Running the marina is just side work for when we're not leading dive tours."
"Sounds awesome to me," I said.
"Diving is," Susie agreed. "Living in a tin can on the other side of the world is not. I haven't had McDonald's in months!"
"Then what are you guys doing here?" I pressed. "Sounds like you were ready for home before signing onto Surf."
"Sure as hell didn't say so," Eddie grumbled before Susie could reply. He quickly added more brightly, "This isn't just a joyride. Each dive gets me closer to my application as diver for the RCMP."
"The what?"
"Royal Canadian Mounted Police," Eddie explained. "You're American, then? They're not just cops on horses, you know. They need divers, but you have to be supremely qualified. Here I'm exposed to a wide variety of situations and places that look good on my resume. We tour reefs and stuff, sure, but I also search the hull for bombs and damage. Whatever they need."
High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4) Page 4
